Nursing? It is hard work ill paid, and none but the strongest can stand
it. What would you have them do then, Admiral? Sit down and starve?"

"Tut, tut! It is not so bad as that."

"The pressure is terrible. Advertise for a lady companion at ten
shillings a week, which is less than a cook's wage, and see how many
answers you get. There is no hope, no outlook, for these struggling
thousands. Life is a dull, sordid struggle, leading down to a cheerless
old age. Yet when we try to bring some little ray of hope, some
chance, however distant, of something better, we are told by chivalrous
gentlemen that it is against their principles to help."

The Admiral winced, but shook his head in dissent.

"There is banking, the law, veterinary surgery, government offices, the
civil service, all these at least should be thrown freely open to women,
if they have brains enough to compete successfully for them. Then if
woman were unsuccessful it would be her own fault, and the majority of
the population of this country could no longer complain that they live
under a different law to the minority, and that they are held down in
poverty and serfdom, with every road to independence sealed to them."

"What would you propose to do, ma'am?"

"To set the more obvious injustices right, and so to pave the way for
a reform. Now look at that man digging in the field. I know him. He
can neither read nor write, he is steeped in whisky, and he has as much
intelligence as the potatoes that he is digging. Yet the man has a vote,
can possibly turn the scale of an election, and may help to decide the
policy of this empire. Now, to take the nearest example, here am I, a
woman who have had some education, who have traveled, and who have seen
and studied the institutions of many countries. I hold considerable
property, and I pay more in imperial taxes than that man spends in
whisky, which is saying a great deal, and yet I have no more direct
influence upon the disposal of the money which I pay than that fly which
creeps along the wall. Is that right? Is it fair?"

The Admiral moved uneasily in his chair. "Yours is an exceptional case,"
said he.

"But no woman has a voice. Consider that the women are a majority in the
nation. Yet if there was a question of legislation upon which all women
were agreed upon one side and all the men upon the other, it would
appear that the matter was settled unanimously when more than half the
population were opposed to